User blog:Semerone/Wiki information legitimacy

Hello and welcome to today's edition of Wiki information legitimacy!

Today, I will tell you about the issue of vandalism at wikis, how to deal with vandals and the research sources of our wiki.

Recommendations
I came across this great blog by staff member Brandon Rhea, which I want to recommend, as it sheds light on some positive aspects of wikis.

It also shows how their information helps new fans to get to know about a series:


 * The Fan's Journey on FANDOM (Part 1)

Wiki information legitimacy
I noticed, that the internet still seems to have a very negative viewpoint regarding the legitimacy of information posted on wikis.

First things first, I think, that this viewpoint is pretty biased and it's unfair to judge other people's hard work and research like this without reason.

Vandalism and how to deal with it
Of cause, I am well aware, that larger wikis sometimes face an issue called "vandalism" and that this bisased viewpoint might stem from them sometimes not being able to handle this issue, as some wikis are either dead due their very inactive communities (this is often the case, when the topic isn't hot anymore) or the admins having left the wikis and no one else being able to revert the vandals' edits or block them.

There are easy solutions to this issue, though. If you are on a wiki, that has been vandalized or is being vandalized, you should first check, if there's an admins or staff page.

If there is, check the admins, if any of them are active or were active in the most recent time (a few hours ago or up to 5 days ago).

If there aren't any active admins, then contact the Wikia/FANDOM staff and tell them about the issue. You can find them over at Community Central.

They will then will either help you out or redirect you to the VSTF (Volunteer Spam Task Force). You will be asked to file report, so depending on which kind of vandalism you are facing, you go to the REPORT PROBLEMS header and go to the corresponding page, where you can file a new report by clicking the REPORT X (X being the kind of vandalism you face) button.

Now file the corresponding report fields and post the report. It will now show up at the corresponding report page. You should receive a message in a few hours or the next day.

If they don't take care of the report and close it, then contact the staff again and tell them about it.

VSTF doesn't react because of new policies?
In the most recent time, I had a vandal over at one of the other wikis I am administrating, that had been cross-vandalizing wikis.

I was able to block them on the wikis, I am an admin at, but couldn't do anything about them over at the other wikis.

As such, I contacted the VSTF, who did nothing?!

It seems like they have changed some policies, so you are probably better off contacting the Wikia/FANDOM staff, which I just did.

Back to the topic
Regarding Kishin Douji Zenki Wikia's articles, my fellow admins and myself are always making sure, that the content for the wiki is first hand. If that's not possible, we will either ask AzureKnight2008 (second hand) or check foreign sources (third hand).

First Hand content
Owning all 2 DVDs with all 51 anime episodes, the OVA bonus episode, all 5 games and all 12 manga from the series, Zenki, Vasara and myself always make sure, that our own research is as close as possible to the original source as it gets.

Of cause, as the original content is in Japanese, we are still translating things into English, but we are working around this by posting screenshots, photographs or even the Japanese text alongside the English one whenever it is possible to prove our facts.

Even regarding our images, we constantly make sure, that they are properly tagged and placed in the categories they belong to.

Even Gokimaru is giving us first hand content, as he lives in the region where the story of Kishin Douji Zenki takes place and owns the aforementioned media as well.

Second Hand content
If we can't get our hands on first hand content for whatever reason, then the next source is Azure, who mainly posts her research on the series over at her DeviantArt account and verifies her sources as well.

As of our current information, she also owns the anime DVDs and the manga from the series and is often travelling, so she is able to visit the local region where the story of Kishin Douji Zenki takes place as well.

So any research coming from her side can be considered legit, too.

Third Hand content
We try our best to avoid this scenario, but when it's unavoidable due to the information not being directly available, then we are checking the internet or libraries for information.

In this case, we always make sure to compare as many sources as possible to ensure the quality of our information.

The only entries we are currently using third hand content for are the anime voice cast members and our research on the original KDZ Team, as these information aren't availble otherwise.

Our sources are in Japanese, if possible, to ensure, that there are as little transliteration or translation errors as possible.

Thanks
Thank you very much for reading this blog.

I hope, that you liked it and will be able to use this as a reference, in case you ever meet vandals at your wiki and don't know how to deal with them or in case you want to check the legitimacy of our work over here at Kishin Douji Zenki Wikia.

Greetings Semerone (wiki founder) de:Benutzer_Blog:Semerone/Die_rechtliche_Lage_zu_den_Inhalten_von_Kishin_Douji_Zenki_Wikia